Figure 3.

A detailed analysis of lens regeneration, showing lens proliferation and crystalline synthesis. All lentectomies were performed at stage 44 + 8 days. The first column shows bright field sections through the heads and the eyes. The second column shows bright field sections with BrdU staining (green) and γ-crystallin staining (red) X10. The third column shows higher magnification images to depict better the regenerating lenses. The different rows represent samples at different time points after lentectomy. Note that the regenerating lens comes from the dorsal iris (the case at 6 hours) or the ventral iris (case at 48 hours). The regenerating lens is obvious at 6 hours post-lentectomy and starts organizing well with proliferating lens epithelium at the anterior (arrows) and differentiating lens fibers at the posterior (arrowheads) as soon as 12 hours post-lentectomy. The proliferating cells in the ciliary margin (open arrows) are retina stem/progenitor cells that contribute to the growing retina.